Since its creation, the Internet has gradually expanded from a system for allowing general computer-to-computer communication to a facility for providing a myriad of services and content to users around the globe. As part of this evolution, sophisticated infrastructure was added over time to better support services and content-centric applications.
Today, the Domain Name System (DNS) serves as a directory service for determining the location of requested content. Various hosts establish “domain names” as aliases with the DNS. Users then contact various DNS servers to retrieve the address of the host, as identified by a domain name, where requested content is stored and served. Subsequently, users contact the host via the retrieved address in order to fetch or consume the content.